


We Can Do Better

by godblessthefandom (Browncoat101)



Category: Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: F/F, Gay Women, Queer Women, Terminator - Freeform, Wives, mackenzie davis' arms, wlw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Browncoat101/pseuds/godblessthefandom
Summary: Total retelling of the last ten minutes of Terminator: Dark Fate, and onward from there.
Relationships: Dani Ramos/Grace, Grace & Dani Ramos, Grace/Dani Ramos
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	We Can Do Better

**Author's Note:**

> Very much a work in progress.

The dream always starts the same, and it’s the part that’s the most vivid. Because it really happened. It’s not something dreamed up by her fucked up imagination, it’s real, and it’s solid. And she’s there. 

Because she was. 

Grace remembers opening her eyes and the first thing she sees is Dani’s smile. 

“Hey, G.”

The same old greeting. 

“Hey, D.”

The same old reply. Even though Dani wasn’t just Dani (maybe she’d never been Dani), even though now she was  _ the Commander  _ and in charge of an army. They had been here more times than she wanted to remember. Broken down after a fight, wiped out after a watch, scared, worried, sick, but they were always there when the other one opened her eyes. And that same old conversation. 

“Why are you smiling at me?” Grace asked. She didn’t try to get up, didn’t try to move. The memories came rushing back, and she remembered why she was there. 

The program. 

“You woke up. I always smile at you when you wake up, Gracie. I can’t help it.” 

Grace could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks because of the nickname. She hoped that the bandages wrapped around her face would hide it. 

“You old charmer-”

“INTRUSION DETECTED. ALL STATIONS ACTIVATED. LEGION INCURSION DETECTED.” The voice boomed out over the loudspeaker. 

Dani’s eyes widened, but there was no panic there as they began to dart around the room. 

“Dani!” Grace screamed. 

Dani ignored her, and marched over to the corner, pulling out the wheelchair that sat there, and rolled it over the the bed. She ignored the lights and alarms, as she ripped the tubes from Grace’s arms. 

Grace grabbed her hand. “There’s no time.”

“Don’t say things that you don’t know anything about.” Dani ripped the blanket off the bed, and tugged on Grace’s shoulders. 

“I weigh about 300 pounds now. You can’t carry me, you can’t push me. Just go. They need you.” 

Dani ignored her again, and pulled hard, moving Grace only a few inches. Grace hadn’t the strength to help, but the screams in the hallway getting closer gave her some motivation. She reached for Dani’s hand, pulling it free from her arm. 

“They need you, Commander.” 

Grace looked into Dani’s eyes, desperate to tell her everything that she could, desperate to tell her the truth. Her feelings, everything. But a crash behind them spurred her on. 

With what little strength she had left, she pushed Dani away. “Go, Dani, go.” 

Dani stood for a moment. She seemed, for the first time in a long time, unsure of what she had to do. Slowly, ever so slowly, she turned, her hand holding Grace’s until the last possible second. 

But it was too late. 

The doors to the hospital room slammed open, and metal, slinking, scorpion-like tentacles skittered into the room. Dani raised her gun, but it was too late. One sliced into her chest, sending scarlet droplets across the wall. Before Grace could move or think or even blink, a dark spike dug through her chest, bursting through the other side. 

Grace watched in horror as Dani was ripped apart, and the machine turned on her. A deep and terrible scream bubbled up from the pit of her stomach and-

-

She was awake. 

She coughed violently as she tried to get the acrid smoke out of her lungs. 

“Grace?” 

And then Dani was kneeling beside her. Not  _ her _ Dani (whatever that meant), but a younger, softer version, though the fire in those eyes was still there. 

“Grace! Are you okay?” 

She wasn’t in a hospital room, she wasn’t in that terrible dream, she was back, and Dani was alive. 

“Dani.”

Grace’s voice was barely a whisper. She coughed again and tried to catch her breath. She tried to breathe around the blood and tried again. “Dani…”

She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, but Sarah’s voice interrupted them. 

“It’s not dead!”

Grace could hear the whirring of the damaged Rev-9 rising from a pile of debris. This was it. They were out of options, but there was one left. She saw the shard of metal lying on the ground beside her, and with what little strength she had left, she reached for it, pulling it close, and pushing it into Dani’s hands. 

“My power source.” 

Dani shook her head so fiercely a few of her tears landed on Grace’s face. 

“Dani, you have to, it’s the only way.” 

Dani’s eyes settled on the blade, as Grace wrapped her hands around it, and pushed. Grace watched the range of emotions sweep across her features before they hardened into resistance. 

She hurried to stave it off. “Dani, we don’t have a choice. We have to stop this thing, and we have to stop it now. You can do that. You have to.”

There was a moment of hesitation and Dani looked as if she might actually listen. Her face held the trace of a question and Grace was quick to answer it. 

“It’s why I’m here, Dani. It’s why they sent me. So I could protect you. Don’t let it all be in vain.”

Years of experience should have stopped her from saying this the way she did. Years of having Dani yell at her for putting herself in danger. Years of Dani telling her that she was too important to her for her to throw her life away, but Grace had been thinking with her heart and not her head. It’s what she would have told Dani if they had been back home, among the rubble and the soot. Among the constant danger and shortages and fear. It’s what would have made the most sense for her to tell Dani because it was what was in her heart. 

Dani’s expression turned to stone, and Grace realized her mistake in an instant. 

“Dani…” She started. 

Dani threw the jagged metal she held in her hands away, and pressed her lips against Grace’s forehead. “You came to save me, but I’m going to save you. You’re too important to me to let it end like this. Then it really be all for nothing.”

The last of Grace’s energy drained from her, and she closed her eyes against the hot tears that streamed down her face. She couldn’t let it end like this. She couldn’t lose Dani before she’d even had a chance to meet her. 


End file.
